It was a long, tense Saturday night at Baltimore’s Camden Yards, where the home team needed extra innings to beat the Red Sox inside the park and thousands of protesters angry over the death of Freddie Gray made their presence felt outside.

Police and news helicopters circled throughout the game, sometimes shining spotlights at the growing crowd of protesters and riot-geared cops beyond the center field fence. Before the bottom of the ninth inning, an announcement was made that fans would not be allowed to leave the stadium because of an “ongoing public safety issue” and when that order was lifted in the bottom of the 10th Orioles officials urged fans to avoid the busy northeast gates.

“It’s not about what I do for the city, it’s about that it can happen at any other city. An African American is an African American, it doesn’t matter that I’m in Baltimore,” Jones said.

“I just want people to be safe during this issue. It’s a tough issue. I think everybody needs to get all the facts. Stay safe, stay smart. Protest, but let’s not damage our own city. At the end of the day, you got to live here.”

O’s manager Buck Showalter also had some words: “Challenging day for a lot of people, probably a lot more than a baseball game. It’s a game of baseball and those are life issues, so this kind of pales in comparison to what’s going on in my life off the field and what’s going on in our city. Just have to continue to have confidence that we’ll get through it like we get through most things in Baltimore and hopefully learn from it.”

The next seven games on the Orioles’ schedule are at Camden Yards, so this likely isn’t over.

Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher has reversed course and will continue to pay minor leaguers. Fisher tells Slusser, “I concluded I made a mistake.” He said he is also setting up an assistance fund for furloughed employees.

The A’s decided in late May to stop paying paying minor leaguers as of June 1, which was the earliest date on which any club could do so after an MLB-wide agreement to pay minor leaguers through May 31 expired. In the event, the A’s were the only team to stop paying the $400/week stipends to players before the end of June. Some teams, notable the Royals and Twins, promised to keep the payments up through August 31, which is when the minor league season would’ve ended. The Washington Nationals decided to lop off $100 of the stipends last week but, after a day’s worth of blowback from the media and fans, reversed course themselves.

An @sfchronicle exclusive: A's owner John Fisher reverses course, apologizes: team will pay minor-leaguers; "I concluded I made a mistake," he tells me. He's also setting up an assistance fund for furloughed employees: https://t.co/8HUBkFAaBx)